As was reported earlier today, Pope Benedict XVI shocked a lot of people with his announcement that he was retiring effective February 28th of this year. He says he’s just too old to fulfill his papal duties. That makes sense to me, but my opinion doesn’t count because I’m not Catholic. I’ve never even been in a Catholic church before.

Today’s announcement has given all those people with Catholic Derangement Syndrome an excuse to come out of the woodwork. During the next few weeks they will get lots of airtime and column space. Billions of pixels will be used in the blogosphere on the topic of papal succession.

This may surprise a few people but the Vatican doesn’t really care what the gang at MSNBC thinks about anything. As a matter of fact, the United States itself has very little influence over the church and its doctrines.

Sometime next month a bunch of old men will select a new Pope. Then that guy will set policy for the church until he dies or resigns.

42 Responses to If You Ain’t Catholic, STFU!

I’m a Catholic, but my mother had me re-baptized (at the church in her head) as a “heathen” when I stopped going to church regularly in 1969.

I saw a WaPo article speculating on the black Cardinal from Africa as a pick. Either WaPo reads Drudge (where I stole it) or TCH (where I posted his bio downstairs). Or maybe they’re just racist and spotted the black face on the Popestakes race form 😉

My older relatives decorated their “parlors” with a crucifix and portraits of JFK and the Pope.

Also remember people feared a Kennedy win because he’d take orders from the Pope and run the country like a Catholic Church. Crazy politics, we Catholic kids taunted the Protestants with “Hail Mary Full of Grace, the Masons are now in second place” when JFK won.

The MSM is salivating over idea of an African becoming Pope — what they don’t understand is that the African cardinals are SUPER HARD LINE ORTHODOX.
Of course, the fucking idiots in the MSM can’t see past skin color — they think black skin = liberal.

I write this hesitantly because it’s way outside my areas of expertise (action movies and things that explode in the microwave). Plus I’m not even Catholic. But I think Joseph Ratzinger — aka Pope Benedict XVI — is one of the greatest men of the age — possibly the only great man of the age — and almost certainly the last great man Europe will produce. As far as I’m concerned, he should turn the continent’s lights out as he steps down at the end of the month.

B-16′s greatness doesn’t lie in his papacy. Or that is, if it does, I wouldn’t know. It’s his writing, his theology, his thought that elevate him in my mind. When I was but a youngish dude, pounding my way through the great works, it seemed to me that the wisdom of many of the great German thinkers of the 18th and 19th centuries had been thrown aside for no good reason. Kant and Hegel had philosophically rescued the essence of Christianity for the scientific age, and had been ultimately left behind by mainstream thinkers not because they were wrong, but because they were just sort of out of keeping with the atheistic spirit of the day.

As Nietzsche understood, that God-is-dead zeitgeist would perforce lead to moral relativism. And so it has. But Ratzinger, shrugging off the zeitgeist like the cheap suit it is, humbly went on tilling the Kantian and Hegelian fields, making his way back not just to the essentials of Christianity but to the sacred person of Christ himself.

This is a great act — an intellectual feat that shows the idols of the age — men like Derrida and Lacan and Foucault — to be the mental pygmies that they are. When they are forgotten (which will be around Thursday at 4PM), the writings of Ratzinger will be remembered and read and discussed for their radical divergence away from the wisdom of the age and toward the truth. Or make that Truth.

Anyway, I know the news media will be trying anything they can to make it sound as if B-16 was somehow responsible for the execrable child-molesting business. (As far as I can tell, he had no culpability there and even helped clean up the mess.) And I know they will be focusing their energies on trying to pressure the Vatican into electing a black lesbian midget next or whatever.

Agree. Benedict has certainly never been a favorite of mine but it has always been apparent that he is bright and extremely well organized. He did not make an announcement without having his ducks in line. Not to mention that the Vatican represents the oldest bureaucracy on the planet (and from most accounts the most efficient postal service in Europe/World).

I do find it fun to watch so many try and claim some special inside knowledge of something they do not comprehend and have not a snowballs chance in hell of influencing.

Ratzinger managed two of the greatest injuries to women in this modern age . The effects of his offense against women ripple far beyond the confines of the Catholic Church
He came out strongly and irrevocably against women attaining priesthood in the RCC , and also against parish priests marrying.
So the message went out far and wide , to the entire world .

Women not only are not acceptable as priests , we the RCC do not even want our priests marrying them. We women , simply do not measure up , and never will according to the RCC and the view of Ratzinger the Pope.

This is no small matter for the status of women in the world . It is a grievous and unforgivable offense against half , or more than half , of the world population. Unforgivable .

He doesn’t seem to mind bucking 700 year old traditions when it comes to himself .

Those of us who are not Catholic are still affected by the Catholic Church because of its sheer size and its political influence in the world. I’d like to be able to ignore it, but it’s kind of like the proverbial elephant in the room. It takes up a lot of space and if you aren’t careful, it will trip you . Unfortunately, who is chosen as pope matters to the rest of us. I don’t expect the new pope will be much different than the old pope. He is in a nearly unique position to influence who is selected.

I agree with your marrying priesthood rant. The hypocracy of allowing merging married Anglican fathers the whole enchilada but nada to their home grown variety ill serves today’s RCC and B16, imo. It’s extrabiblical, to boot, which puts that entire hierarchy on shaky footing in view of today’s culture. This is something they coulda fixed and didn’t. Too bad.

Jesus healed Peters mother in law . There is precedent in the gospels for priests marrying . Mary was a disciple as esteemed as any of the men , and was the first witness of the risen Christ .There is precedent for women being ordained as priests . The Pope , any pope speaking ex cathedra , ( latin for ” from the chair ” and meaning as exercising his authority as the head of the church ) according to RCC dogma is infallible .
. It could be done .

The Catholic priesthood is a self-selected group of people who tend to be traditional & conservative.

There was a blip of radicalism during the liberation theology days when a generation in Latin America grew up thinking communism was all that, but that, I think, has pretty much died out now, faced with the reality of the corruption & tyranny that new regimes so idealistically supported by young radical priests turned into.

I do wonder about the generation of young African priests – the reality they grew up in is one that faces poverty, violence, genocide, and radical Islam.

My larger point is that priests, from parish priests to Pope, are simply people who have attitudes & world views shaped as much by their childhoods as by their years in the seminary & in service.

The reporting of this shows how little our betters in the media know about anything — first, they think that they can influence the pick and second they act as if a new Pope will somehow dramatically change the church like a new POTUS changes policies in DC. The gospel and mission of the church is going to remain the same regardless of the Pope.

I just learned the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show is on. THAT is the Most Important News of the Day.It’s really the only thing I look forward to until March Madness begins. (Except, of course, the Oscars)
Yes, I’m that shallow.